2005/2006
CHAMELEON SERIES Leiser Opera Center

 

ONLY STRINGS

January 22 2006 at 3 pm

The Amernet Quartet
And Iris van Eck

 

Quartett-Satz D.703 F Franz Schubert

Scherzetto Stephen Dankner

Tamborito William Grant-Still

Estrellita Manuel M. Ponce

 

Urban Quartet Fredrick Kaufman

 

 

 

 

Intermission

 

 

 

Quintett in C-major , opus 163 Franz Schubert

Allegro ma non troppo

Adagio

SCHERZO, presto

Allegretto

 

From September of 2000 until May 2004 the Amernet String Quartet was Corbett String Quartet in Residence at Northern Kentucky University, where they headed the Patricia A. Corbett String Program.

Previous to that, the group held a residency at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where they taught chamber music for four years.

The Amernet String Quartet has received grants from the Corbett Foundation, the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, the LaSalle Foundation, the Fine Arts Fund, the Cincinnati Chamber Music Society and the Amernet Society for school outreach projects, commissions of new chamber music works and for their unique concert and conversation series. The group was the recipient of a Chamber Music Rural Residency Award in 1995. During that year they divided their time among the communities of Johnstown, Somerset and Indiana, Pennsylvania.

The Amernet Quartet has conducted workshops and master classes in Buffalo NY, Memphis TN, Erie PA, Los Angeles CA, Logan UT and other cities. They are founders of The Norse Festival, a summer chamber music workshop at Northern Kentucky University that provides an opportunity for young musicians to work intensively in chamber groups, under their guidance.

The Amernet Quartet has garnered worldwide praise and recognition as one of today’s exceptional young string quartets.

The ensemble rose to international attention after only one year of existence, after winning the Gold Medal at the 7th Tokyo International Music Competition in 1992.

Three years later the group was the First Prize winner of the prestigious 5th Banff International String Quartet Competition. The Amernet String Quartet has been described by The New York Times as “an accomplished and intelligent ensemble”, and by the Nürnberger Nachrichten (Germany) as “fascinating with flawless intonation, extraordinary beauty of sound, virtuosic brilliance and homogeneity of ensemble”.

The Amernet String Quartet was formed in 1991, while two of its members were students at The Juilliard School. Founding members Marcia Littley and Javier Arias have been joined by fellow Juilliard graduates, violinist Misha Vitenson and violist Michael Klotz.

Their busy performance schedule has taken the group to the major musical centers and smaller cities across the United States. They also have performed concerts in Japan, Canada, Germany, France, Switzerland, Korea, Mexico, and most recently, in Romania. The Amernet’s New York debut was at Merkin Hall in 1994, with a return engagement in 1995. Subsequent New York appearances include Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in 1996 and 1998, the Americas Society in 1998, and Alice Tully Hall in 1997 and 1998, which The New York Times described as “immensely satisfying... most notable for the quality of unjaded discovery that came through so vividly.”

The group has recorded the Concerto for Clarinet, Oboe, String Quartet and Bass by John Harbison with Sara Lambert Bloom and Charles Neidich as soloists, “The Butterflies began to Sing” a work for String Quartet, Bass, MIDI keyboard and computer, by Morton Subotnick, a complete CD of quartets by American composer Stephen Dankner, as well as a recording of the Debussy String Quartet and the Chausson Concerto for Piano, Violin and String Quartet. The Amernet Quartet maintains a connection with today’s composers, and has worked closely with such composers as Anthony Brandt, John Corigliano, Stephen Dankner, David Epstein, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Gerhard Samuel, and Morton Subotnick. Their most recent commission, sponsored by the Amernet Society, is “Prairie Songs”, a work for string quartet and choir by Grammy award winning composer Mike Reid.

The Amernet Quartet enjoys collaborations and has performed with numerous artists and ensembles, such as the Tokyo, the St. Lawrence, and the Ying Quartets, Steve Ansell, Zvi Zeitlin, Miriam Fried, Toby Hoffman, Ida Kavafian, Paul Katz, Anton Kuerti, Ruth Laredo, Eugene Pridonoff, Sandra Rivers, Shauna Rolston, Nathaniel Rosen, Eric Shumsky,James Tocco, Dame Gillian Weir and Kyung Wha-Chung and many others.

In January 2004 the Amernet String Quartet was named Quartet-in-Residence at Florida International University, succeeding the Miami String Quartet. Additionally, they are the 2004-2005 Ernst Stiefel Quartet-in-Residence for the Caramoor Center for the Arts.
Copyright © 2004 Amernet String Quartet

 

Iris van Eck, is principal cellist for the Florida Grand Opera and the Florida Classical Orchestra. She has appeared as soloist with various orchestras in the United States & in Europe and is frequently heard on the chamber music circuit in South Florida and abroad. A recording of women composers (Henriette Bosmans, Louise Farrenc and Rebecca Clarke), together with Dutch pianist Arielle Vernède, was just completed in Delft, the Netherlands.
In March 2006 she will be featured as soloist with the Florida Classical Orchestra playing (Robert) Schumann’s cello concerto. She plays a beautiful French cello made by Bernardel Pere in 1831. 
She was born in the Netherlands to a artist painter (father) and a piano teacher (mother). She studied at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague with Jean Decroos (principal cellist in the Concertgebouw orkchestra) & Rene van Ast before moving to the United States where she studied with madame Raya Garbousova. She is a winner in the Edith Stein Concours in the Netherlands (on flute) and the Concerto Competition at Northern Illinois Universtity (on cello). She also participated in master classes with Paul and Maude Tortellier and at the Piattigorsky Seminar in Los Angeles she studied with William Pleeth, Lyn Harrell and Jeffrey Solow and at the Cleveland Chamber music Seminar with Joseph Gingold and the Guarneri Quartet.